


Oh boy

by LaviBookman



Category: D.Gray-man, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Tagging characters as they come in, Violence to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 12:51:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaviBookman/pseuds/LaviBookman
Summary: It was simple, in theory. Take care of the kid, do his work, wait for Pepper to come home. Pretty much the usual, save the kid. And the reincarnation bit.Wait, what?Oh man, Pepper's going to kill him when she gets home.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cosmic Composite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737428) by [liketolaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh). 



Chapter 1  
\-----------  
The cubeish item sat, innocent (ironic) on the desk. It called to him, just like it had before.

“Dinnertime, kiddo.” The door to the workshop opened and the owner walked through, holding a small ball of something - a metal of some sort. It had probably come in through the mail. He stopped when he noticed the red head staring at his desk. “Something wrong, Lavi?”

The red head couldn’t answer for a moment - what would he tell the man? The reason why he had fought in a war was sitting on the desk. Did he have any idea what he had, or what it meant?

“Wh...where did you get that?” Eventually his voice croaked out, filling the silence that had fallen.

“The cube?” Tony walked over to the boy, looking at the cube with him. “Some explorers found it somewhere. I don’t remember where. No one could figure out what it was, so they let me have a crack at it.”

“I know what it is.” Lavi’s voice, blank, interrupted Tony’s tirade. 

That made Tony take another look at his friend’s son. It was rare for Lavi to be so serious. He waited a moment, watching, before he gently asked a question - as blunt as he was, he knew Lavi well enough to be careful with some things.

“What is it?” He would ignore the other questions rolling about his brain (why? Why does Lavi know?) in favor of giving the boy something to focus on. The both of them had always done better with statistics than emotions and they knew it. Right now, Lavi looked like he was remembering something horrible (but he shouldn’t be. Tony and Bruce and the others had done their best to keep him out of everything) so what was going on in that head of his?

“It’s called Innocence.” He swallowed. “It’s a weapon.”

The inventor had to blink several times at that. Innocence... as a weapon? It seemed like a strange name.

“Why do you know that?” He asked this question just as carefully as the first, although a knot of dread deep in the depths of his stomach dampened his curiosity. 

“I used to have it, in another life.”

Tony’s eyes widened at the quiet declaration. Lavi had been in another life? Honestly, it wasn’t the strangest thing they’d ever encountered over the years, but even so, it was still his friend's son!

“From what I’ve been able to figure out, this isn’t the same world - the mythologies are different and so are the countries.” The redhead chuckled weakly, though he didn’t find it at all funny. “I thought our fight was done.”

The inventor's quick mind filed away the implications of ‘our’ (he hadn’t done it alone?) while it stuttered at the fact that he had needed to fight at all. Maybe he had been conscripted or drafted?

And, well, partially it was still stewing over the whole ‘second life’ thing.

“Your fight?” Tony’s curiosity, although dampened, had the question out of his mouth before he realized it, before he could call it back.

“The Exorcists’ fight.” Lavi clarified easily. “War, we called it. It was the Exorcists versus the Noah. But that doesn’t seem to have happened here.”

“Why not?”

“None of your countries inexplicably disappeared.” Lavi’s voice had slowly lost all emotion, something else Tony was familiar with, although no one knew why it had developed. He hadn’t gone through any trauma (well, anymore than any child who knew their Dad nearly sacrificed themselves on a fairly regular basis did) but if he had lived another life… The red head’s body language had also shut down. In Tony’s eyes, he had become a totally different person, not the bubbly, jovial kid he had grown to know over the year they’d known each other.

“There’s nothing in history that I could find alluding to the existence of Akuma, Noah, or the Exorcists. We never fought a war here. I even looked for secret history, but there’s nothing concrete enough to be counted.”

Tony, with all of his experience of fighting, could only imagine the horror his son might have gone through. The implication of ‘secret history’ was also filed away.

“You were part of the Exorcists?”

“Sort of. I was also part of the Bookmen Clan, and the Bookmen came first when I could.” Lavi shrugged, attention going back to the cube. “Not that that was any better. Still wars and genocide, for the most part. Somebody had to record them.”

Surely steam was pouring out of his ears by now. The silence as Lavi paused was deafening. Blood pounded through his ears, probably through both of theirs. 

“You mean… you’ve been keeping this from your dad? From Pepper and I? For how long?” Tony’s mouth was dry as the thought occurred to him, although the horror hadn’t dimmed at all. Just what had Lavi, his best friend’s son lived through? Wars and genocide, fighting in a war for who knew how long, at who knew what part of his life. The thought made him swallow. He was a grown man, and he thought it was horrible.

“...” The reincarnated Bookman didn’t answer, but that was enough for the inventor’s quick mind; it pieced together all of the nightmares Lavi had suffered from but refused to elaborate on, the strange phobias and reactions to things he claimed had no basis. 

Despite everything; the fact he had been lied to the entire time they’d known each other, what this may mean for everything they would go through yet, Lavi was now (had been, ever since Bruce had asked him to watch the boy) incredibly important to him and he would do what he could. He couldn’t turn him away. 

“All right, all right.” Tony took a deep breath, pushing aside the horror and everything else for the moment. He could deal with all of this with Pepper, when they told her. “Okay, so what does this mean?”

“It means the Earl and the Noah are back.” Lavi said, his voice still void of emotion although his head tilted slightly and his voice gained a modicum of emotion as he continued. “I wonder if the others are here too.” 

“The others? The other Exorcists?” 

“Yes. There aren’t many of us, and if Ozuchi Kozuchi is here, I bet the others are as well.” The red head’s eye softened as he remembered something.

“Ozuchi Kozo-zuk-whatever?” Tony’s tongue stumbled as he tried to repeat Lavi’s words until he gave up. Japanese? That’s what it sounded like.

“My Innocence. At least, I’m assuming it’s still Ozuchi Kozuchi.” He explained, looking a little fond at the memories. “We worked well together.”

“Your team or you and your… innocence? Unless it was both?” At this point, he felt the both was almost too much to ask, but he did so anyway. He turned some of his attention to the... innocence sitting on his desk. 

“Both.” The answer relieved Tony - at least something went right. “Sure, Yuu was a jerk and Allen liked to egg him on - actually we both did - I don’t think he ever held it against us. He did…” Lavi’s voice faded out, an unhappy thread twining through it. Tony had a feeling he shouldn’t touch that with a 15 foot pole at the moment, so he skipped over it to another question. 

“Was it just the three of you?” He asked instead, taking a deep breath. 

“No,” Lavi shook his head. “But we all worked well together. There were the three of us, and also Lenalee, Noise, Tim, Miranda, Krory-kins, Generals Nyne, Cross, Tiedoll, and Socalo. Oh, and the old Panda, Daisya, there were a few others as well at the other branches.” 

“Oh good.” Tony let out a relieved sigh. “So it wasn’t as small a team as ours.”

Minutely, Lavi winced. If Tony hadn’t been watching for cues, he would have missed it. 

“Well.” Lavi wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell someone he considered an uncle what had happened to the majority of the Exorcists, but there was no reason to hold anything back any more. The Bookman rules didn’t apply here, not where they didn’t exist. “Sort of? Timothy didn’t fight a lot - he was too young to be sent out and his Innocence was somewhat difficult to control. The Generals were usually out doing their own things - they were supposed to find accommodators, although it was debatable if Cross did anything that resembled his work most of the time.”

“Okay… But that still leaves a sizeable team.” Lavi put a hand behind his neck as he turned his attention to Tony, a gesture that Tony recognized as embarrassment. 

“That’s not everyone though… Timothy didn’t come in until later. Before he came in, several of us… left. Suman Dark, Daisya, General Yeegar all were Exorcists, but several Finders and other Exorcists also left. Technically, Suman Fell, but… you know. War.” 

Tony wasn’t sure what to say in response. His mouth opened to ask a question, his brain caught up to it, and he closed his mouth. A moment later, he opened it again. 

“Wait wait wait. So you’re saying you were part of this team of Exorcists who used Innocence to save the world from… what did you call them, Noah?” Tony closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Akuma and the Noah.” Lavi confirmed, his attention returning to the glowing material on the desk. “If Innocence is returning, it’s not a good sign.”

“I don’t think it counts as ‘returning’ if it was never here in the first place.” Tony sighed before he tried to inject some light-heartedness into the conversation. “Well, you won’t see if it’s your Ozuchi whatever until you try it kiddo.” 

Sure, his emotions were all over the place and he didn’t know what to think any more (and god, what would Pepper think?) but he would stand by his son and do his damndest to figure things out. 

Oh, gods, how was he going to tell this to Bruce?

Pepper was going to kill him when she came home.

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters or settings used belong to me, all headcannons used about characters or setting do. Please don't sue me.
> 
> This work was inspired in part by Cosmic Composite, written by liketolaugh. I really hope you don't mind me writing this, I did try to make it distinctly different.
> 
> Also, let me know if anything seems off or wrong. I'm not sure when I'll be continuing this as of yet, but I'll keep comments in mind when I do.
> 
> Edit: A year later, and I just now notice some inconsistencies. I am working on a second chapter, so hopefully that'll be up soon.


End file.
